Living Outside Myself

In an on-line article* a few years ago Melanie Evans wrote:  Co-dependency is a dis-ease of being outer-focused rather than being able to healthily detach from people and situations to focus on and take care of Self. Co-dependency is an unhealthy dependency on outer circumstances. Rather than take responsibility for their own lives, co-dependents try to control events and people through granting compassion, advice giving, lecturing, helplessness, emotional blackmail, manipulation, guilt or anger. Co-dependents feel empty on the inside and try to fill this emptiness with things’ outside of themselves. In most cases co-dependents are trying to re-write the scripts of their painful childhoods and will re-attract the same pain over and over. Co-dependents often try to make safe and trustworthy environments with unsafe and untrustworthy individuals and circumstances. In just those six lines; a single paragraph, I find the shortest, most clear glimpse of codependency I have yet to come across. This is especially true of the last line: Co-dependents often try to make safe and trustworthy environments with unsafe and untrustworthy individuals and circumstances.

When there is no enemy within,
the enemies outside cannot hurt you.
African Proverb

 

Originally posted June 29, 2012

Unsafe and Untrustworthy

In an on-line article* a few years ago Melanie Evans wrote:  Co-dependency is a dis-ease of being outer-focused rather than being able to healthily detach from people and situations to focus on and take care of Self. Co-dependency is an unhealthy dependency on outer circumstances. Rather than take responsibility for their own lives, co-dependents try to control events and people through granting compassion, advice giving, lecturing, helplessness, emotional blackmail, manipulation, guilt or anger. Co-dependents feel empty on the inside and try to fill this emptiness with things’ outside of themselves. In most cases co-dependents are trying to re-write the scripts of their painful childhoods and will re-attract the same pain over and over. Co-dependents often try to make safe and trustworthy environments with unsafe and untrustworthy individuals and circumstances. In just those six lines; a single paragraph, I find the shortest, most clear glimpse of codependency I have yet to come across. This is especially true of the last line: Co-dependents often try to make safe and trustworthy environments with unsafe and untrustworthy individuals and circumstances.

When there is no enemy within,
the enemies outside cannot hurt you.
African Proverb

*  http://www.melanietoniaevans.com/articles/codependency-issues.htm